Friday, May 15, 2009

Truck Race Slides Under The All-Star Radar

There have been many hours of programming on SPEED and many interviews on ESPN's NASCAR Now about the All-Star race on Saturday night. The Sprint Cup guys will certainly have the spotlight, but many of them may wind-up talking about what happened on Friday at the track.

The Camping World Truck Series is coming to the Lowe's Motor Speedway at 8PM ET on Friday night and the field is an incredible mix of drivers from all sorts of NASCAR series. Click here for the Jayski page with the race information.

As many fans already know, the ingredients for one of the best races of the season are in place. Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman will join truck series regulars Johnny Benson, Todd Bodine and Ron Hornaday Jr. for the race. Add-in drivers like Brian Ickler, Colin Braun and Tayler Malsam and the combination of Cup drivers, truck series regulars and youngsters with nothing to lose is going to make things interesting.

Krista Voda will kick things off on SPEED at 7:30PM with The Set-up pre-race show. Voda should be able to call on the two veteran pit reporters Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander to set the complete line-up for viewers. There are a ton of good stories inside the drivers and teams set to compete.

Rick Allen will take over at 8PM to call the race. Alongside Allen will be Phil Parsons and Michael Waltrip. Allen enjoys tracks like this and the type of excitement he conveys is wonderful on TV. Parsons is the authority on this series and even Waltrip has learned to handle his analyst role on these broadcasts.

Lowe's Motor Speedway under the lights is still a fantastic venue for live TV coverage. The size and speed of the trucks really lend themselves to this type of track and SPEED will definitely have every available camera ready for the fireworks.

Friday night's race is only the seventh time the Camping World Trucks have visited LMS. Many drivers in this race have competed in all seven of those events. The trucks retain the old school feel of racing and the action should be intense.

As CWTS fans already know, often the truck race is the best of the weekend when the Sprint Cup and truck series run side-by-side. Despite the hype and promotion, this scenario may once again come true on this big All-Star weekend in North Carolina.

TDP welcomes comments from readers. Just click on the comments button below to add your opinion on this topic. This is a family-friendly website, please keep that in mind when posting.

28 comments:

Something to watch for in the truck race is the green flag pit stops,under the new "gas or tire" rule.To the best of my knowledge the field has never had to "double up"under green.A few trucks did on the last stop at California, however the contenders took gas only.I will wager the cautions will fall just in time for the bulk of the field to avoid any green stops.The reasons for these cautions may be real or imagined.If they are made up I hope the Speed commentators will call Nascar out on it.

I'm up to my ears in all of the All Star hype and you're right that the trucks could be the best show of the weekend. They are notpoints racing for "THE CHASE" but only to win. No goofy wings or splitters. I'm turning on practice now.

I will be paying more attention to this race as I have really had it with the Sprint Cup and Nation Wide Series. The truck teams have more heart and soul of racing, and any race can be won by any competitor.

I know you don't like driver bashing on this site, JD, but you have no idea how just reading the news that Kyle Busch will be in this race makes me not want to watch. If not for him, I'd be as hyped up for this race as you seem to be.

I used to look forward to the truck races, but I just can't get excited about them since they've been infected with the same virus that's invaded the NW series. There used to be a time when, if you didn't like what was going on in the cup series, if your driver wasn't doing well for instance, you could turn to one of the other series for a different "storyline" or a different cast of characters, if you will. Those days, sadly, are gone.

I realize this is Speed's "Daytona 500", since it's the only Cup race they do each year....so they're obviously going to hype it.

However, they over-do it. We keep hearing "they're going to let it all hang out"....but, really, when's the last time we've had an out-of-your-seats exciting finish to the All-Star race? I mean the finishes that they hype were from All-Star races at least 10 years ago.

This truck race tonight, though, has the potential to be a very exciting race. We're getting to that point in the season where the trucks finally get racing on a weekly basis, which I feel is the part of the season that sets the stage for a driver to win a championship....this stretch between Charlotte tonight and Memphis in late June, is my favorite of a truck series season.

Oh, and I never could understand that saying that people would "love to hate" someone. I get no joy out of his presence in any sense. My dislike of him is very real. The idea that people love a villain? The people who like him don't consider him a villain, so that saying makes no sense to me.

My term for 'minor leagues' is anything else other than what would be considered the top teir of competition as defined by the sanctioning body, money involved, fan attendance, and TV audience compared to other levels of competition.

Again, its not a knock on how exciting a race can be. The teams in the truck series don't make the same amount of money as Cup drivers, track attendance is nowhere near what it is at Cup races even at the same tracks the same weekend, and TV coverage just isn't the same.

That is the reason why the trucks just don't get the same amount of attention.

Allisong, I'm watching the truck race because Kyle Busch is in it. I like a driver who give his all in every race and doesn't care what anyone thinks. Kyle wins with different teams with different brands and different crew chiefs. He proves that it is driver more than equipment in many cases.

The majority of the truck races that I watch include SDDD. He makes it more exciting. He adds another competitive truck to the field. Keep in mind that in 2008, 17 of the 25 races in 2008 were won by Benson, Bodine, Busch and Hornnaday. Add to that individual wins by Harvick, Newman, Skinner and Speed and you have 4 races that were won by everyone else.

The series is very competitive and very exciting, but in the end, there are only a few drivers that are likely to win.

Great job by Randy to get the interview with John Darby about what would happen if Showdown and All-Star qualifying get rained out. I would have never thought to even ask, I would have figured it was like a normal race and they would be started by points... but boy starting by the qualifying draw would be interesting.

If qualifying gets rained out, Kirk Shelmerdine and Carl Long would be on the front row for the Showdown, with my pre-race odds-on favorite Brian Vickers starting 31st. Wow!

Truck races are exciting and they deserve more recognition. Since Schrader is not in the lineup I am pulling for not K.B.

I love the All Star Race. Tomorrow is the first one I've missed since 2000. I will watch but nothing like being there seeing the drivers giving it their ALL, listening to Montoya's scanner, seeing a brother put his brother in the wall..priceless

Showdown qualifying being rained out is going to put a huge kink in some of the favorites chances at being able to transfer to the All Star race. Vickers will be starting at almost the very back of the pack and have very little time to make hois way to the front.

It'll be interesting to see who ends up getting the fan vote. There's really no sentimental favorite or anyone lobbying for votes that we've seen in recent years. Based on their starting spots in the showdown, some of the teams will be needing to fall back on the fan vote.